I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
I remember hearing this one over the years and regarded this as a very pleasant oldie-but-goodie, not knowing much about the story behind it. Jiros （ジローズ）started life as an amateur band headed by Jiro Sugita（杉田二郎）, while he was a student at Ritsumeikan University in Kyoto in 1967. The name was chosen since Sugita and the two other members had similar first names. However, this version of the band broke up a year later.
Then in 1970, Sugita started the 2nd version of Jiros, this time with Jiro Morishita（森下次郎） partnering up with him, with their 2nd of 6 singles, "Senso wo Shiranai Kodomo Tachi"(Children Who Don't Know War) becoming their biggest hit. Released in February 1971, it was composed by Sugita and written by musician Osamu Kitayama（北山修） who also had his own big hit during that year. According to the Wikipedia entry on the song, with the Vietnam War raging and US troops stationed in Japan at the time as citizens were still dealing with the aftermath of World War II, the song was seen as a mild and happy-go-lucky anti-war song, although Jiros never reflected any direct association with the peace movement.
And going through the lyrics, I don't see any particular anti-war sentiment, although Jiros sing about the then-young generation being as happy as sheep in their long hair, growing up in a time of no war and humming peace songs. If anything, I think the two were pushing (ever so slightly) more for hedonism. And in the same Wiki article, lyricist Kitayama later considered the song "....a puerile effort to satirize, and rebel against, the contempt felt by older generations who experienced WWII for younger people born in the postwar period--who were denounced for weak-mindedness and lack of self-discipline...". Uh, ouch!
Yeah, I think the song is so pleasantly sung that those same older generations that Kitayama referred to probably happily clapped along to it. I didn't especially get any feeling of lyrically sharp slashes slicing through the fabric of society any more than a plastic knife would carve through a frozen block of butter. But that's me. In any case, the song was a pretty decent hit with it peaking at No. 11 on Oricon, and winning two Japan Music Awards for Best Newcomer and Best Lyrics.
One of my favourite songs on either side of the Pacific has been "Just The Two Of Us" by Grover Washington Jr. and Bill Withers. Coming from Grover's "Winelight" album from 1980, it's just one of those songs that I love to go to sleep to, but it's not a lullaby. I try to savor every note from it.
15 years later, J-R&B singer Toshinobu Kubota（久保田利伸） looks for fame and fortune in the United States and releases his first US album, "Sunshine, Moonlight". I remember the title track being used for a frankfurter commercial in Japan starring Kubota himself....probably the coolest jingle I'd ever heard for a wiener (sorry, Oscar Mayer).
Also on the album was Kubota's cover of that very same classic "Just The Two Of Us", and my ears perked up. Grooving it with Caron Wheeler from Soul II Soul, this new take took me back to good ol' 80s R&B. It hasn't quite replaced Washington Jr.'s original in my eyes and ears but this uptempo version has still been fun to hear. The official video has a slightly different arrangement.
The top video is the concert version of the one that I've known from Kubota. Whenever I hear it, I always anticipate Stevie or Chaka suddenly jumping in. "Just The Two Of Us" was also released as Kubota's 17th single in Japan in September 1996, while the US issue of that single came out earlier in June as his 2nd release. The Japanese version managed to chart as high as No. 30 on Oricon.
Of course, I gotta put up the original version for comparison. Nighty-night!
This is probably my first article talking about two obscure but appealingly quirky bands which sang the same quirky song. First off, let's get into Juicy Fruits. Starting off as a rock band with some techno kayo stylings called Haruo Chikada & BEEF in 1979, a year later, Chikada（近田春夫） left and the band changed names (and food groups, apparently) and became Juicy Fruits in 1980.
Juicy Fruits debuted with what would probably be known as an earworm now with "Jenny wa Gokigen Naname"(Jenny in a Bad Mood). Written by the band bassist, Yuji Okiyama（沖山優司）, and composed by the departed Chikada for release in June 1980, the lead singer and guitarist, Atsuko Okuno（奥野敦子）, sings the song in a chirpy falsetto. The lyrics talk about the difficult title character getting herself into a lather about a boyfriend possibly straying far afield.
But what got my attention besides Okuno's voice was the combination of novelty pop and technopop with a bit of 50s twang in a blippety-bloppity rhythm. It just reminded me of what Polysics would later do. In any case, the song peaked at No. 5 on Oricon and sold 370,000 records, although it didn't chart onto the yearly Top 100. Still, considering how many singers and groups have covered it in the past 3 decades, Juicy Fruits was able to make its mark in Japanese music history.
One of those bands which covered "Jenny" was hi-posi. I vaguely remember seeing a video of this duo on some show with vocal Miho Moribayashi（もりばやしみほ） as the camera jerked around strangely while the whole video looked very blurry. Moribayashi was singing in this soft whispery voice and everything led to this rather non-mainstream feeling coming through the screen.
hi-posi（ハイポジ） was formed in 1988 with Moribayashi, Kenji Kondo（近藤研二）, Naomi Araki（あらきなおみ） and Yu Yamaguchi（山口優）. In 1991, they made their major debut but Araki and Yamaguchi left a few years later. The band was a part of Shibuya-kei with their own techno stylings., and in 2000, Moribayashi brought her own whispery vocals to bear through a cover of "Jenny", some 30 years after its debut as the band's 12th single. There was a rather odd video to it but I can't seem to find it on YouTube at this time.
After Kondo left in 2000, Moribayashi was left all by herself but decided to create the first Terran interspecies band by having her Golden Retriever, Mizette, join. Then to further add to the canine content, Mizette's daughter, Mir, came aboard in 2003.
Anyways, some of the other artists who have covered "Jenny" are a couple of members from Morning Musume, Perfume and GO!GO!7188.
The first time I heard Beethoven's "Fur Elise" was on "A Charlie Brown Christmas" when Schroeder was doodling on his miraculous toy piano before Lucy asked (ordered?) him to try out various versions of "Jingle Bells". That was all the way back in the late 60s and since then, I've heard the classical version numerous times in the department stores, mostly around the Holidays.
Go ahead several years into the 70s when my Dad was playing some old audio tapes of Japanese music shows. I couldn't recognize who was singing (maybe it was Pink Lady or Candies), but a female group did their own jazzy version of the Beethoven classic. I never found out who they were exactly (April 2016: finally found out).
However, several more years after that, "Fur Elise" was given another facelift in Japan; this time, by The Venus, a band that specialized in paying tribute to American rock/pop music of the 50s and 60s. Giving it the rockabilly treatment, lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木耀子） wrote the lyrics and the band had the new title of "Kiss wa Me ni Shite"(Kiss Me on the Eyes) which was released as their 9th single in July 1981. Considering how popular the music that The Venus aspired to play was during that time and the masses of young folk twisting away in Yoyogi Park, "Kiss wa Me ni Shite" made for quite the pop anthem. In fact, it was also used as the commercial song for Kanebo Cosmetics that year.
"Kiss wa Me ni Shite"became the 32nd-ranked song for 1981, selling over 400,000 records.
And let's finish it off by showing some of those Yoyogi teens dancing the day away. By the way, the song in the background is "Jenny wa Gokigen Naname" by Juicy Fruits. I'm gonna have to cover that one as well (and I finally have right here).
I guess when I look back at it, one of my television viewing hubs when I was in Japan was Saturday nights. During my Gunma years, I used to watch The Tunnels'"Neruton Club" and then the sketch show "Yume de Aetara" on Fuji-TV at 11:30 p.m. (Lindberg's "Believe In Love" was one of the theme songs). Then, several years later, when I got into my Ichikawa years, there was another variety show in that time slot called "Love Love Aishiteiru"(Love Love 愛している....Love Love I Love You）.
The half-hour show (1996-2001) was a literal potpourri of tarento and singers, with Johnny's Entertainment duo, Kinki Kids, and veteran singer Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎） headlining the festivities. Each week, a musically-inclined actor or a bona fide singer would appear for a bit of humourous chit-chat and then some music, with an assist by the Kids and Yoshida. The backup band consisted of one-third of Alfee, half of the Bubblegum Brothers, R&B guy Keizo Nakanishi（中西圭三） and zany teen tarento Tomoe Shinohara（篠原ともえ） among others. There was someone for everybody.
I was a pretty faithful viewer of "Love Love Aishiteiru" for some of the back-&-forth quipping amongst the hosts and guests. But I think one of the running gags for the whole show was seeing whether the Kinki Kids could get the stone-faced and bespectacled Yoshida (whose nickname was The Sphinx, mostly due to his hairstyle back in his folkie 70s) to crack a laugh...didn't happen often but it was delightful to watch when it did.
In any case, one of my highlights was whenever the show started and the whole gang goes into the rendition of the theme song, "Zenbu Dakishimete"(Embrace All), a good time tune which was composed by Yoshida and written by Chinfa Kan（康珍化）. It was also great at the time to pick it as a karaoke selection at the boxes since just like when the Love Love All-Stars (the collective name for the cast) perform it, one has to quickly zip through the lyrics, and usually even the Kinki Kids and Yoshida aren't entirely successful which encourages the rest of us common folk.
Though Kinki Kids and Yoshida did their song together on the show, they also had their own versions of "Zenbu Dakishimete" with Yoshida's take included on his 1997 album, "Minna Daisuki"（みんな大好き....I Love Everybody）, and the Kids released a single the following year. The above video is for Yoshida's self-cover.
As for the Kinki Kids, the duo is Koichi Domoto（堂本光一） and Tsuyoshi Domoto（堂本剛）...same family names but no relation whatsover. They first met up at a Hikaru Genji concert in 1991, and as they went up the Johnny's Entertainment ladder, they were given a variety of names until they settled on Kinki Kids since both of them were from the Kinki region of Japan, which is also known as the Kansai region including Osaka, Wakayama and Mie Prefectures. Their first single actually came out some months after the debut of "Love Love Aishiteiru" in 1997, the hit "Glass no Shonen"（ガラスの少年） created by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）.
I have to finish this by including one of the segments from the show. The overcaffeinated and oversucrosed Tomoe Shinohara started things off at 11:30 with her "Puri-puri-pretty" gig in which she invaded the dressing rooms of the guests and basically got abused. On another variety show, Shinohara even had a chance to meet Robin Williams for a short interview. Much hilarity ensued, but suffice it to say, Williams won the insanity match handily.
Considering that the long-running anime "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）and its most famous theme song "Odoru Ponpokorin"（おどるポンポコリン） are pretty much tied at the hip, it's hard to imagine any other song being associated with it. And yet, for a brief time in the mid-90s, there was an opening theme that was truly different.
The ethereal beauty queen of Shibuya-kei, Kahimi Karie（カヒミカリィ） came up with "Humming ga Kikoeru"(I Can Hear Humming) in 1996, a short and fun piece of pop cultural nostalgia which brings together the opening notes of 60s US sitcom, "That Girl",Stephane Grappelli's violin and some old-style French pop. And of course, there are the breathy vocals of Karie.
The official video for "Humming ga Kikoeru" has Karie traipsing nonchalantly around a room of stuff to play with while filmed in a black-&-white that reminded me of some of those old French TV dramas that I inexplicably watched as a kid on Canada's CBLFT-25. The singer certainly got the tone right. And from watching the video, I certainly feel like skipping down to the nearest boulangerie to grab a croissant and café au lait.
And just for nostalgia's sake, here is the opening from "That Girl". Man, that show takes me back to my diapers!
I heard this virus-level infectious tune by techno wizard Takkyu Ishino（石野卓球） when I was doing my monthly crawl through Tower Records in Shibuya one day over a decade ago. I just kept hearing this bass computer voice intoning the title over and over again through my ears and into my brain before the bouncy techno rumbled in over the store speakers. Gradually, I realized it was by one of the members of Denki Groove（電気グルーヴ）.
I tracked down "gimme some high energy" to Ishino's 4th solo album, "Karaoke Jack"(2001). The Ishino sense of humour was there right on the cover with his calm face superimposed over a model's body. And that sense of glee was also evident in the official video for the song, although I can't find it on the Net. It had a couple of men, which included disco-lovin' tarentoPapaya Suzuki, in a squash game. Their rather tight gear ends up attracting the two to each other by the end of the video (you really have to be watching). As for the song itself, it sounds like as if it were made to musically accompany a rather impish villain up to no good. Perhaps, it could have made a good theme for Superman's rather less-than-impressive enemy, Mr. Mxyzptlk.
March 23 2018: Thanks to the contribution of a commenter, I found out that back in May 2001, Ishino collaborating with Tavito Nanao, released a single called "Last Scene" with none of the growling "gimme some high energy" vocals as they were replaced by a whispery sexy voice over the relentless and catchy melody. And even better, the commenter led me to the video! However, looking at the Amazon page, the single also has the original "gimme some high energy".
